If you’d have asked me the year 2000 how often I’d be going to The Ballet in 2009, I would have told you to step off my combat boots, dude. Thankfully, my better half has schooled me in the ways of performance, and I can now go on forEVER about how the dance community is my new 2nd art-home. Fast forward to this week and I’m flailing my nelly wrists over Les Ballets Trockadero De Monte Carlo, or The Trocks, a drag ballet company making its seasonal stop in Chicago on Wednesday January 27th at the Harris Theater. Traditional ballet WILL piss me off, and the BF will frequently shush my feminist disgust when some tanorexic starlett gets onstage and I want to throw a sandwich at her. This will be my first time seeing the Trocks, but if Sid Smith’s right about the degree of muscles at this show, I’ll get shushed because I’m still talking about sandwiches. From the website:
Founded in 1974 by a group of ballet enthusiasts for the purpose of presenting a playful, entertaining view of traditional, classical ballet in parody form. The original concept of LES BALLETS TROCKADERO DE MONTE CARLO has not changed. It is a Company of professional male dancers performing the full range of the ballet and modern dance repertoire, including classical and original works in faithful renditions of the manners and conceits of those dance styles. The comedy is achieved by incorporating and exaggerating the foibles, accidents, and underlying incongruities of serious dance.
So, apparently I’m in for some serious athleticism in classic forms, HOWEVER this time, I won’t need to snarl at a starving sack of bones passing off as a breathing person. The Trocks tickets aren’t cheap, but neither are these dance moves. Tickets here.
